McLaughlin Motors

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Walk Around

The design of the Volvo S40 is lovely, subtle and original but mostly very clean: Scandinavian simplicity at its artistic best. Clearly, Volvo doesn't do boxes any more with its sedans. The S40 looks somewhat like an Audi A4 from a distance, and that's its competition, but when you look again you appreciate the unique soft snub nose. Form followed function, as short overall length was a primary engineering objective. Sexiness was a styling objective, and the S40 achieves both.

Rounded front corners (but mostly the engine package) enable this shortness, and the rear corners are pushed in as well, giving the S40 an overall stylish shape. The lack of chrome adds class, with the normal bits, from window trim to ding guards, all being black or body colored. The doors are slightly convex, as opposed to the previous concave shape, and high shoulders make occupants feel protected.

The S40 is a Volvo from any angle, but head-on it's unmistakable with its dark eggcrate grille with the diagonal Volvo slash in center. The headlamps bend horizontally from the sweetly flared fenders toward the grille, with three visible lamps: one rectangular, one round and one trapezoidal. The front air dam is divided by two splitters into three neat sections.

Viewed in profile, the sharp rear end and soft front end gives the car direction. The rocker panels are slightly wider in the rear, giving the illusion of forward rake and more motion. More dramatically, the sloping roofline quickly meets an abrupt and lipless rear deck; the distance between the bottom of the glass and the 90-degree edge of the deck is not much more than a foot. Yet all the lines, including the rear hips, cascade smoothly together. The optional alloy wheels look really good and add to the S40's presence.

Viewed from the rear, the license plate indent is clean, unlike many others. The smooth rear bumper rides over two stainless exhaust tips, pointing conspicuously and curiously down toward the ground; if they point down just to look cool, it works. The huge red taillights are trademark Volvo, each with a clear plastic band containing its backup light.

The V50 Sportwagon shares the attractive front styling of the S40 sedan. From the side, the wagon body style is achieved by simply extending the roof line and belt line back to the tail, with a slight diagonal angle from the roof down to the beltline. It's only from the rear that the V50 differs from the S40. Volvo has taken the same style of tail light, but then extended it up the side of the wagon all the way to the roof, giving the wagon a slightly awkward look from the rear. The only consolation is that the tall tail lights may help warn drivers behind you when stopping quickly.

Volvo's primary goal for the S40 was to stuff the levels of safety found in the flagship S80 luxury sedan into the S40's small package. To that end it was designed using something called VIVA, for Volvo Intelligent Vehicle Architecture. What appears to be an unprecedented amount of time, research, testing and detail went into the construction of the chassis and body in the interest of crash protection. There are several zones of deformation upon impact, built with different strengths of steel depending on that zone's function: conventional, high strength, extra high strength and ultra high strength steel.

Interior

2007 Volvo S40

The interior of the Volvo S40 and V50 models looks great. It's also intuitive and easy to use.

The seats are comfortable. The instrument panel is clean and simple and workmanlike, with a big speedometer and tachometer, white numbers on a black background with red needles.

The center stack is only an inch thick, like a computer monitor with a flat screen. Behind it is a storage bin. Simple, clever, practical, handsome, Swedish. You have to reach around the back of the stack to gain access to that shallow storage space, but it's better to have it than to waste it because there is a distinct lack of cubby storage in this car. The center stack curves gracefully upward behind the beautifully minimalist shift lever to link the console with the instrument panel. One problem we had with the thin stack, however, is that during hard cornering, of which the S40 is eminently capable, our right knee rode hard against the edge, and it hurt.

Audio, climate and other control buttons are arranged vertically. There are four round knobs at the corners. One of those knobs is a menu control that easily accesses more detailed information and controls. Above the buttons is an information screen.

The T5 comes with brushed aluminum interior trim, which is perfect from a style standpoint. Not too much and in all the right places, including the whole center stack. The 2.4i comes with dark wood trim, which isn't nearly as good-looking.

Storage space in the S40 is severely lacking, however. The center console has a tiny bin. The door pockets are thin with most of the space taken up by speakers. Mesh pockets are located on the leading edge of the seat bottom, in front of the driver and passenger seats, but most people won't notice or use them, though they will hold a cell phone. Everything is carefully compact in the interior, including the strong stubby door handles, easy to grab and pull. Two good cup holders forward of the center console work well.

The S40 and V50 are surprisingly roomy given the exterior dimensions, highlighting Volvo's efficient use of space. And Volvo has created intelligent ways to use that space, benefiting from some of the ideas gleaned from designing the XC90 SUV. The rear seat is a 60/40 split and the seatbacks open up to the trunk when dropped. The front seat folds as flat as the rears, creating an unprecedented open floor space and 38.4 cubic feet of cargo space, a lot for a small sedan.

The chopped-off rear end makes the trunk opening small, but it leads into a deep forward well, with 12.6 cubic feet of luggage space, about average for most mainstream sedans. Below the floor of the trunk is a space-saver spare tire and a first aid kit. The trunk lid was cleverly designed to open and close smoothly and easily.

The V50 wagon offers 27.4 cubic feet of luggage space with all seats upright, and a substantial 62.6 cubic feet of cargo space with the rear seats and the front passenger seat folded down, which compares favorably to many mid-size wagons by other manufacturers.

Volvo leads the auto industry in environmental awareness, and there's an emphasis on environmentally compatible cabin materials and systems, such as trim materials with low PVC content.

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